SAILING SHIPS
She was built in 1904 in Denmark as the EVA. Like many sailing ships of her day, she was a workhorse and carried cargo from all over northern Europe to America during the early part of the 20th century. Later on she was sold and renamed to META JAN.
In the late 1960s she was bought by British owners and renamed CHARLOTTE RHODES. In 1971 she rose to fame when she appeared as one of the main ships to star in the popular BBC television series 'The Onedin Line', the first ship owned by main character James Onedin, played by Peter Gilmore.
Unfortunately, she would be set on fire and destroyed in Amsterdam in 1979, an apparent victim of arson and her remains were broken up locally.
S.V. CHARLOTTE RHODES
S.V. CLUB MÉDITERRANÉE
Alain Colas’ mighty four masted 72 meter long racing boat CLUB MÉDITERRANÉE one of the largest sailing vessels that could be operated singlehanded.
Colas would enter her in the 1976 Ostar transatlantic sailing race, the largest boat to ever enter the race and after a rough crossing, they finished in 5th place (although technically finishing in 2nd place behind Eric Tabarly in 'Pen Duick VI', Colas had pulled in to Halifax, Nova Scotia mid-race to make some repairs and received a 58 hour time penalty), a crossing that overall took him 26 days, 13 hours and 36 min.
Colas would also participate in another transatlantic race, the first Route du Rhum in 1978 on his aluminum trimaran MANUREVA (ex PEN DUICK IV) but would disappear half way across the Atlantic. Neither his body nor his boat were ever found.
The CLUB MÉDITERRANÉE would be bought by Bernard Tapie in 1982 and completely rebuilt into a luxury sailing yacht called the PHOCEA. She was the largest sailing yacht in the world until the launching of the ATHENA in 2004.
On the 18th of February 2021, she sadly caught fire and sank at anchor off Langkawi, Malaysia and was a total loss. The seven members of her crew were safely taken off and no lives were lost.
Built in 1912 as the POLARIS, she had originally been envisioned as a Norwegian steam yacht with her hull reinforced to withstand ice. However when these plans fell through she was bought by renowned polar explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1914, renamed ENDURANCE and was refitted for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, an expedition that set out to be the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent.
The ENDURANCE set sail in August of 1914 from Plymouth, England first heading to Buenos Aires and then on to South Georgia, stopping at the whaling station of Grytviken. From there they would have headed for Vahsel Bay on the coast of Antarctica, where a team would have continued on foot across the continent to the Ross Sea.
After months of being constantly hit by gales and beset in the ice, the ship would never make it to Vahsel Bay and ended up being partially crushed by closing pack ice and sank in the Weddell Sea, stranding Shackleton and his crew. They would eventually take to the lifeboats which they had salvaged from the ENDURANCE before she went down and used them to reach the uninhabited Elephant Island, off the coast of Antarctica. Shackleton would then take five other men and sail one of the lifeboats (named 'James Caird') on an epic 800 mile voyage to South Georgia to find help and eventually mount a rescue of the rest of the crew left behind on Elephant Island. This is considered to be one of the greatest feats of survival and amazingly without a single loss of life!
The wreck of the ENDURANCE was located on the 5th of March 2022 in 3008 meters of water and found to be in an incredible state of preservation.
